Like John Lewis or Arup in the UK, SAIC cites employee ownership as a reason for its sustained success. For its founder, this was just one precept.

Of course, it's really all down to his wife, Betty. Over Robert
Beyster's office desk hung a poster - a present from Mrs Beyster -
bearing a message that summed up the ethos of his business: 'None of us
is as smart as all of us.'

Beyster founded Science Applications International Corporation, or SAIC,
in 1969, borrowing $30,000 from the bank and securing the loan on
his house. Nearly 40 years later, the technology firm employs 43,000
people at 150 locations worldwide, and is turning over $8 billion
a year. Not bad for a little start-up from the small town of La Jolla in
southern California.

This book is Beyster's own account of his remarkable success. He stepped
down as head of the company in 2004, and now feels able to talk. And
what he gives us is one great big good-news story.

As a hack, my initial instinct is to declare, like any hard-bitten news
editor: 'Good news is no news.' But we must try to overcome the
cynicism, because there are important lessons to be learned here.

And, in fairness, Beyster does not pretend to have been some sort of
saint-like, gentle leader of his company. 'I was a demanding CEO,' he
concedes at the outset. 'I gave my managers as much autonomy as they
could handle, but I also expected results, and I constantly monitored
performance metrics and kept my finger on the pulse of every part of the
organisation, no matter how small or how far flung. My job was to be the
catalyst that energised the corporation - to set the bar high, to keep
people on their toes, to model (and insist on) the highest ethical
standards, and to hold people to their promises.'

Beyster founded the business because of his love of science, not money.
'I wanted to create a company that would attract talented scientists and
engineers who would tackle nationally important scientific issues,' he
says. 'Our goal was to grow a company that would be stable - where the
staff stayed with the company, even in hard times ... and creative
research would be considered important, regardless of the size of the
contract.'

His timing was good. The Cold War was at its height, and the US
'military industrial complex' needed high-tech solutions. SAIC began a
relationship with the US government that has proved extremely lucrative
for it ever since.

Defence work, not to mention surveillance, seemed to come naturally to
the firm. We have already heard how Beyster kept a close eye on his
managers, but how about this? 'It became a responsibility of all
employees to be alert for co-workers who were not contributing, and to
either help them remedy this situation or ensure that management was
informed.'

Claustrophobic, or merely benign paternalism? Beyster certainly took a
keen interest in his new recruits, putting most candidates through at
least five interviews before making a job offer. But this attention to
detail was all part of the strong SAIC culture, which was based on the
principle of widespread employee ownership.

Long-time colleague John Glancy is quoted in the book explaining how
this works in practice. 'Giving a person one share of stock made them
100% different,' he says. 'With stock, they felt like they were
involved, and an owner. If you weren't performing, you weren't just
hurting the company - you were hurting yourself.'

Beyster is a long-time proponent of the virtues of employee ownership.
'I have found,' he says, 'that employees are more patient investors than
the public.' So deeply entrenched was this culture that the firm even
established its own internal stock market.

Beyster's book is structured around his 12 core principles, the ideas
that lie behind SAIC's success. The principles are:

People first: SAIC hires smart people and lets them focus on customers,
rewarding them for their entrepreneurial flair.

Freedom (but with strings attached): staff are free to pursue work they
are passionate about, but follow company practices for bidding and
contracting, and adhere to the highest ethical standards.

From science to solutions: a firm commitment to science and
research.

Employee ownership: the glue that keeps people on board.

Participation in decision-making: Decisions made and problems resolved
at lowest appropriate level.

Maybe The SAIC Solution isn't for everybody. There have been rumblings
in the US media - especially in the March 2007 edition of Vanity Fair -
of how well SAIC has done out of the 'war on terror'.

But now you know the company's secrets, what's stopping you from
launching your own billion-dollar business yourself?
- The SAIC Solution: How we built an $8bn employee-owned
technology company; J Robert Beyster and Peter Economy; Wiley £18.99.